


Waxen

by voltronpaella



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Colorblind Lance, Lance (Voltron) Angst, M/M, Pining Lance (Voltron), canonverse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-25
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2019-01-23 04:32:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12498832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voltronpaella/pseuds/voltronpaella
Summary: The world is black and white. At least, for Lance it is. So when he and his friends get shot into space, it causes them all a bit of trouble.





	1. Gray-Scale

Ever since Lance was young, he wanted to be a pilot. He couldn't imagine being anything else no matter how hard he tried. That is, until he got into elementary school. That's where his dreams all came crashing down around him.

It was a short while into kindergarten year, only one or two weeks, when Lance was 6 years old, and they had been learning about the different colors, specifically of the rainbow.

Lance didn't really understand what his teacher was talking about when she described the colors, saying that red was the color of an apple, that green was the color of the leaves, that blue was the color of the sky when there weren't any clouds– to him, all the colors looked the same! He didn't say this though, instead just nodding along with the rest of his class.

When his teacher handed out coloring pages and gave them an order to color the arches in, he did his best to follow the instructions they had been given, but all of the crayons looked the same.

He couldn’t tell which one was this ‘violet’ color, or which was the color of the sky. Different shades of black and white sat in front of his eyes, and he ended up with a rainbow of neons and blues instead of the ordered arches that supposedly appeared in the sky after it rains.  
When his teacher confronted him about his poor color choices at the end of class, right before lunch, he simply tilted his head in confusion. "What do you mean?" He questioned, dark brows furrowed on his tanned face. "I colored the way you said to."

The teacher looked confused and still a bit angry, crossing her arms over her chest as she gazed down at him. "You only got one color right, Lance. All the rest were wrong." She tried to explain, pointing to each arch of crayon-filled color.

This, of course, only confused Lance more, gazing at the paper as his features contorted unashamedly and he shrugged. "All the colors look the same to me. I guess I mixed then up."

When he said this, the last of the woman's anger fell away and was replaced by confusion, and then turned to understanding. "Alright Lance, it's okay. Go on to lunch, I have to make a few calls."

–

That afternoon when he got home his mom had begun to question him about his day, seemingly trying to question him about something specific. Silence came, which lapsed into minutes of awkward tension and concerned glances his from his mother.

"... So.. Your teacher called me today." She finally spoke, voice gentle as they sat in their small living room alone, his older siblings at their respective sports and his littler siblings were down for naps.

"She said you were having trouble... Telling the colors apart?" Ama took the opportunity to glance at him, frowning when he just shrugged and looked off to the side. "Is that true?"  
Lance stayed quiet for a moment before shrugging and nodding a little, chewing gently on his baby soft lips. "I guess... Everything just kinda looks black and white and grey to me?" He tries to explain, fidgeting on the couch quietly.

His mother inhaled a bit, a soft gasp as she gazed at her precious baby boy. "I... Why didn't you tell me, sweetheart?" She questions, carefully moving closer to him and gently rubbing his back. More than anything, she was worried that he hadn’t told her because he didn’t trust her– or something along those lines– so when he spoke she was rather relieved.

“I just.. I thought everyone saw this way..” He mumbles gently as he leans into her comforting touch, eyes filling with tears as he gazes up at her in a sudden spurt of fear. “I’m not dying, right? I’m not gonna die?”

The emotions that so clearly showed on his face and in his crystalline blue orbs made her heart wrench in her chest, shaking her head quickly. "No, no, of course not sweetie. Something like that would never kill you." She murmurs, pulling him into a tight hug and sighing gently.

"But.. Lance, I do have to tell you... If you can't see color, you... You can't be a pilot."


	2. Monochromatic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He made it. He really made it.  
> Will it last?

It had been years since Lance found out that he was different, that his world was different from everyone else's. That he wouldn't be able to be a pilot.

But his mother had encouraged him nonetheless, helped him the best that she could, taught him how to tell what was red and what was blue. She did what she could as a mother, and even tried to do what she couldn't.

Now Lance was older, 17 years of his black and white life had gone by, and he was finally applying to the Garrison. His father had advised him to, as he put it, 'not write down his chromatopsia on the medical form'. So, to put it simply, lie to his superiors and make them think he had normal vision.

That would be a fucking miracle.

When his letter from the school finally arrived, Lance felt like a weight came down on his shoulders, pushing all the air out of his lungs and forcing him to hold his breath as he tore open the envelope and yanked out his letter.

With his family behind him to support him no matter what, he gulped and unfolded the thin stack of papers, fear constricting in his chest before he finally reads the words.

'Dear Lance McClain-Sanchez,  
The Garrison is honored to welcome you aboard to our crew. Enclosed is a packing list and the boarding list. Before you arrive, please find your name, room number, and roommate name--'

After the first few sentences he had stopped reading, blinking back tears as relief and joy flooded over him. Silently he turned to his family, who were waiting with bated breath. At the sight of his tears they gasped, but then he smiled.

"I got in." He choked out before breaking down into tears, collapsing into the open arms of his mother and father and sobbing into their chests. "I did it, mamá. I did it."

"I'm proud of you, cariño."

—

The letter had arrived only weeks before the beginning of the first semester, of Lance's first semester, at the Garrison. He could barely contain his excitement as he arrived at the large training building, dragging in his trunk of items and moving it to his shared dorm.

"You must be Hunk!" He called out as greeting when he spotted a boy laying on one of the beds, tanned and chubby but not too. "Nice you meet you, I'm Lance. I'm really excited about this, are you?"

Hunk was looking rather confusedly at him, big brown eyes blown wide while his new roommate had suddenly appeared and started greeting him rather loudly. "I... Um... Yes?" He replies, coming out as more of a question.

Lance merely laughed a loud, boisterous laugh and shook his hand before climbing onto his own bed and splaying his limbs out. "I hope we can be good friends. Not like those roommates who barely talk to each other and avoid one another."

When Hunk didn't respond Lance felt a bit of anxiety clutch at his heart, electing to ignore it and give him a smile instead. When he looked at Hunk, however, he looked just as nervous as Lance felt.

"Don't worry dude, I'm not too scary... Sorry if I came across really strongly." He finally told him, reaching across the small room to shake his hand. Hunk gave him a smile in return, nodding a little.

"It's fine, I'm just... I have a bit of social anxiety, so meeting all these new people is a bit... overwhelming." The Samoan tries to explain, a nervous, embarrassed blush coming over his cheeks as he spoke.

Lance understood exactly what he meant, giving him a grin and nodding. "Oh, I totally get that! No big deal, I won't push it. You can trust me, Hunk. I really want to be your friend."

Lance had half a mind to just tell Hunk the secret weighing down on him right then and there, feeling a comfort and trust in the other boy already. He kept it to himself instead, fear that Hunk would spill to the superior officers silencing him.

He hoped their friendship would grow. No, he knew their friendship would grow. He couldn't wait.

—

"Hey, Lance, can you help me with a project once we're done with practice?"

The request sounded simple enough, so of course Lance had agreed to help his best friend with whatever his project was. "Sure buddy! Whatever you need, as long as I can actually do it." Lance laughed loudly as they entered the simulator, taking the pilot's seat and strapping himself in.

Hunk smiled back and quickly thanked him before the 'mission' began, quickly hopping in his own seat and watching their newest crew member, Pidge Gunderson, take his own. What a weird name.

Lance shook off nerves and worries of failure in the simulation machine, focusing the best he could as they were filled in one the details of their 'mission', Iverson's words coming clear over the crackly speaker.

They were to go in and find a discreet place to land so they could infiltrate a foreign base and rescue prisoners. Should be a piece of cake, right?

Apparently not. Hunk lost his lunch not soon after the simulator started, then they were virtually shot at, and they couldn't get one of the engines back– one failure after the next.

Needless to say, they crashed.

Iverson had yelled at them quite a bit after they exited the sim, blaming Lance for not noticing the engine failure light sooner, and they headed back to their rooms with their heads hanging.

Hunk, however, was not at all deterred from his work and immediately got to it once they entered their dorm, plopping down at his desk and pulling out some mechanics project.

"Hey, Lance, can you come help me now?" He questioned with one of those famous Hunk smiles, one that you could never say no to, and Lance immediately gave in to him.

Quickly he plopped down in the chair next to his best friend and watched as he got to work on the hunk of metal. Occasionally he would ask for tools, not even glancing up, and Lance would immediately hand it over without a thought.

This exchange between them went on for hours, silence sitting upon them except for Hunk voice gently requesting tools, until Lance's knowledge of items failed him.

"Hand me the joiner's mallet."

Lance paused for a moment, blinking at Hunk with rather owlish eyes. "I'm sorry, the what? What's that look like?" He questions, looking over the array of hammers the other boy owned.

"Seriously? The joiner's mallet, Lance. The big red hammer." He clarified in a bit of a huff, finally taking a second to glance at Lance.

Lance blinked at him once, then twice, then looked back down at all the hammers. "Uh..." He swallowed dryly before picking up a big hammer, glancing at Hunk. The other only shook his head, sighing.

"It's big, red, and rubber. This was the first tool I taught you! Come on, Lance." He groaned outwardly, not hiding his slight disappointment as he watched him.

"Uh, yeah... Right.. Red... Um..." His eyes scanned over the colorless tools and picked up another hammer. At this, Hunk's face changed, twisting into a slight look of concern at this.

"Lance, come on, joke's over. I only own one red hammer, it–it's right in front of you."

Lance merely looked at him sheepishly and scratched the back of his head, shrugging a little. "Maybe it's not here! Haha." He suggests nervously, trying to give himself an excuse for why he couldn't find the hammer.

Hunk raised a brow and rolled over to him in his chair, picking up the item he had been asking for and giving Lance a pointed look. "Is there something you want to tell me? It was right there, buddy."

The other tensed and glanced at Hunk sheepishly, shaking his head as he sits back down. "Nope! Nothing at all." He replies quickly, almost too quickly, and Hunk gently places a hand on his shoulder to calm him down.

"Hey... Lance... You can tell me anything. You're my best friend... I'm your best friend, you can trust me!" He tries, gently rubbing his back as Lance's expression falls from a smile to a slight frown, eyes sad.

"I... I know I can trust you, I just... If... If I tell you, you might not trust me.." He murmurs in response to this, tense beneath Hunk's comforting touch but not making any moves to pull away.

Lance nearly felt like he was on the edge of a panic attack as Hunk gazed at him in concern, brows furrowed and mouth twisted into a frown. It was quiet between them before Hunk spoke again.

"Lance, please just tell me.. I promise, whatever it is, I won't tell anyone, and I won't judge you for it." His voice was quiet as he spoke, gently muttering words of encouragement while his friend looked at the ground.

"... Okay. Okay. I'll tell you. But... You can't..." He inhaled a bit. "You can't tell anyone."

Hunk raised a brow but agreed to these terms, taking Lance's hands gently in his much larger ones and looking at him expectantly.

Letting out a shaky breath, Lance allowed his eyes to meet Hunk's before he spoke, hands trembling in his grip. "I... I have chromatopsia. I can't... See colors. Any color." He explains quietly, watching Hunk's face for any signs of negative emotions.

Hunk's face didn't show them though. In fact, he was nothing but smiles as he let out a relieved breath. "Oh, thank god! I thought it was something bad, like you were going blind or had cancer or something." He replies, laughing gently at his own nervousness.

Lance was a bit surprised that Hunk took it so well, lifting a brow and giving him a bit of a confused look. "Wait, you're not-- You're not mad?" He questions, feeling Hunk tug him into a tight hug.

"Of course not. I would never be mad about something like that, Lance! I told you, you can trust me." He replies as Lance buries his face into his shoulder, tears bubbling up in his blue eyes.

"You can't tell anyone... You know that, right? I'll.. I could get expelled from the Garrison if anyone found out. I would never be allowed to fly again." He murmurs against Hunk's neck, tears staining the fabric of his shirt.

"Don't worry, I understand, buddy. I know how badly you want this. I won't tell anyone." Hunk replies just as gently, arms wrapped comfortingly around his thinner body. "I promise."


	3. Tint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So much for a good education.

Despite the weight of keeping his secret now being much lighter on his shoulders, it still sat heavy, crushing him a bit every time they failed the simulator test with Iverson. He heard it in the whispers of students in the halls, in Iverson's clenched jaw as he was berated for crashing yet again.

He was failing. He was losing his chance to be anything, losing his chance to make his dream come true. All his life he had only dreamed of being a fighter pilot, and this thing, this-- This disability was ruining his chances.

The voices hit his ears before he could block them out, drowning him and making him want to curl inward on himself. Hunk accepted it and hid it, Hunk supported him, but what good was that? Hunk couldn't make him a better pilot. Hunk couldn't improve his skills. Hunk couldn't let him see color. He was stuck like this.

"Did you hear? McClain's group failed the simulator again." The voice he heard was unfamiliar, and stung like a slap to the face. "For real?" Came another voice, though it didn't sound much surprised. "That's like, what, the sixth time this month? He should just give up, go back to being cargo class. Maybe then he'd actually make himself useful."

When it comes to words, children can be cruel. Teenagers are much crueler. Their words are always laced with a venom that courses through their victim's body and paralyzes them. It prevents them from saying anything in response, clamps their jaw shut, and forces them to just listen. Their words ache with a truth, and tear the victim apart limb from limb.

Lance never much liked teenagers. Hearing these comments only made him hate them more.

'It's okay, Lance.' A voice comforted in the back of his mind, quiet and soothing. It had an air of familiarity to it, and yet he couldn't quite place it. 'You'll be okay. You'll push through it.'

That afternoon, he cried to himself until all he could let out were dry sobs, voice shaking and rough. His throat hurt from wailing into a pillow, but he couldn't bring himself to stop. He needed this, needed to release his emotions, so he then cried until Hunk returned from classes.

When Hunk had pushed the door open, he saw the state Lance was in and immediately took him into his arms, feeling the way his smaller friend trembled. He held him close, nosing into his mussed up hair to calm him, whispering words of encouragement that only Lance could hear.

"It's okay," He whispered. "You're alright. I'm here now. You're okay."

Lance buried his face into Hunk's shoulder for what felt like the millionth time, taking deep breaths to calm himself while his friend comforted him quietly. It took a few minutes but eventually he was just sniffling a bit, wiping at his red-rimmed, tear stained eyes.

"Now, Lance... Talk to me, what's wrong?" Hunk questioned, looking down at him with a tilt of his head while Lance wiped at his runny nose and tried to dry his face off. He hated being seen this way, so weak, but it was better Hunk than anyone else.

"I'm a defective... Defective pilot... The one thing I want to do I can't! I suck!" He sobs into his shirt, fingers gripping at the fabric while Hunk just rubbed his back in slow, gentle circles.

"You're not defective, buddy. You're special. The fact that you can even fly is amazing, you know that?"

Lance knew Hunk was trying to help, but his chest only ached with his words, shaking his head. "No, I just," He sighs. "Can we just sit like this for a while?" Hunk kept his gaze trained on Lance for a moment before breaking into a grin.

"Orrrrrr we could go out.. Sneak out like you always want to." He replies with a grin, shaking Lance's shoulder a bit and patting his back.

He always seemed to know exactly how to cheer his friend up.

–

When Hunk had said go out, he hadn't thought they'd be staying on property. He had expected to go out to the nearby town and maybe hit on a few people, not go up to the roof and meet Pidge.

At the same time, he didn't mind it. Pidge seemed cool enough, and any chance for Lance to make friends was a welcome time. So he happily snuck around the halls with Hunk, listening intently as voices and footsteps softened once officers moved past them. Anxiety often filled him every time they got close, but he pushed it away in favor of reassuring Hunk.

Once they finally reached the roof, Lance took a moment to take in the black and white night scenery laid out ahead of him, rock formations and all. Wind whipped past him for a few moments before settling into a gentle breeze, bringing with it a dry heat and the scent of sand.

Tiptoeing past Hunk, Lance snuck up behind Pidge, using his light weight to keep his steps silent. His slender fingers carefully lifted up one headphone, a smirk on his face. "Hey there. Whatcha doin'?"

A startled screeching sound erupted from the small boy in front of him as they looked up at him, eyes wide and chest heaving from the shock. "Quiznak Lance! Don't scare me like that!" He shouts, one hand on his chest.

Hands raised in defense Lance plopped down next to him and hummed for a moment as he looked over Pidge's computer screen, rubbing his chin. "What's all this? Looks like gibberish to me.. And this definitely isn’t Garrison tech.”

Pidge gave him a look like what he had said was completely obvious and he should have noticed earlier, making Lance huff a bit as the short boy replied. “Well yeah, I built it.”

“You built it?” Lance splutters incredulously, watching Hunk sneaking closer before reaching out to touch the computer. As soon as his fingers came within inches of the side of the screen, Pidge reaches over and smacks his hand away with a glare.

“No touching. Yeah, I did. For.. Looking at stars. Yeah, stars.” He waves a hand around for added effect, but Lance isn’t convinced in the least. With all the experience from handling his siblings and their awful lying, he can see right through Pidge’s.

Instead of saying anything though, he merely gave the small technician a brow raise and the neutral face of disappointment before Pidge gave it up, turning back to his laptop with a heavy sigh.

“Alright, alright. It’s a computer I made to listen to alien chatter. They keep saying one word, over and over. Voltron. And tonight it’s going crazier than ever.” He explains, pointing to the word in his notebook. He must have been going to say something else because his mouth was hanging open, ready, but he was interrupted by Lance.

“Um, what is that?” The cuban asks in slight disbelief as he points to something blazing white across the sky, moving closer at an alarming rate. Hunk looked as if he was going to hurl, face contorted into a look of nervousness as he waved a hand around.

Watching the others moving closer to the edge of the roof, binoculars in Pidge’s hand, he spoke up to try and distract them from it. “Maybe it’s just a comet or meteor! A really fast… Really big… Meteor.”

“That’s no meteor,” Lance shot back after taking a glance through the binoculars and watching as a ship hurled through the sky, seemingly pilotless. “That’s a ship. And it’s not one of ours.”

As he handed the little gadget over to Pidge a loud crash was heard as the alien ship made contact with the hard desert earth, smoke pouring into the sky as flames lit on the purple metal surface.

Sharing a look with his two friends and teammates, a grin slowly spread on his face before he began to dash down the stairs that lead up to the roof, closely followed by Pidge and Hunk. “Come on, slowpokes! Let’s go check it out!”

—

Let’s just say that what they found in the spaceship is not what any of the Garrison trio were expecting.

Instead of finding a terrifying alien lifeform or a cryptid, they found Takashi Shirogane, the pilot of the Kerberos mission. Now they were sitting in Keith’s desert shack, talking about something the dumb mullethead had found in the desert after getting kicked out.

It was a lot to process and Lance was barely paying attention as he shook his hero’s hand and half-listened to the conversation around him. He gazed around the black and white room for a while before his eyes fell onto Keith, his partial rival.

His eyes scanned his face quietly, taking in the pale gray features and the dark eyes that stared at Hunk as he talked about someone’s diary. Long lashes and a slightly endearing mullet adorned his face. Whatever color his jacket was definitely went with his face though. And his eyes.

Maybe Keith wasn’t as bad as he remembered him.

Snapping his own eyes away when he saw Keith move, he instead watched him snatch something out of his best friend’s hands and hold it up to his Cryptid Board.

“They match.” Pidge breathed next to him, soft in their stunned silence.

“Then that’s where we need to go and look for this foreign element.” Shiro decided, being the voice of reason as always. “We’ll go in the morning, it’s too dark to go now. Someone might get hurt.”

And so they slept, preparing themselves for whatever they may find.


End file.
